Mary Landrieu – The National Wildlife Federation Bloghttp://blog.nwf.org
The National Wildlife Federation's blogThu, 24 May 2018 16:06:07 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.5139259312The Senate and the Seahttp://blog.nwf.org/2013/06/the-senate-and-the-sea-2/
http://blog.nwf.org/2013/06/the-senate-and-the-sea-2/#respondFri, 07 Jun 2013 21:13:32 +0000http://blog.nwf.org/?p=80977Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) fittingly represents the Ocean State in the United States Senate. At Capitol Hill Oceans Week Sen. Whitehouse had this to say: “The oceans can do a lot of things, but they can’t speak for themselves.”

This week, conservation champions from across the country spoke for the oceans.

"The benefits of investing in nature FAR outweigh the costs," Dr. Polasky #GulfHearing

But our lives are tied to the fate of our natural resources every day. So to Senator Whitehouse’s point (and Senator Landrieu’s, Senator Nelson’s, and Senator Wicker’s too!), speak up for the environment. Government officials just might join the conversation.

Sure, even the pro-drilling senators were up in (BP Execs) Bob Malone and Steve Marshall’s faces about their company’s inability to properly maintain the pipeline infrastructure to prevent corrosion–a feat accomplished while BP raked in billions in profits.

However, instead of seeing Prudhoe Bay’s largest oil spill ever and the shutdown of half the oil field in August as a wake-up call to begin weaning the country off of oil, senators berated the BP execs because…

“We won’t get the votes we had already on ANWR, not to mention moving ahead,” — Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.).

“You have completely set back any hope we had to get that bill [drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] passed in the Congress of the United States, I hope you know that” — Sen. Jim Bunning, (R-Ky.).

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) even spent almost her entire opening statement pushing for more drilling in warmer areas such as her home state of Louisiana.

These senators seem to think that the Prudhoe Bay pipeline failure is an anomaly, and that the failure to act in a responsible manner is exclusive to BP. But oil spills are not exactly uncommon–about 1.7 million gallons are spilled into U.S. waters each year (this doesn’t count onshore spills).

We know we can’t rely on oil companies to put the environment at the top of their list of priorities. So why can’t our legislators realize that the time has come to focus on new energy sources?